True, but they have an entirely different role than those who are directly accountable for a business. In the stock market, stock holders are not accountable, they're only there for the money. Many shareholders don't even know what companies they own stock in, the stocks are generic financial funds, such as 401ks. Ethics & responsibility just doesn't factor into stock markets and it probably never will.

"They're only untrustworthy if you're trusting them to do something that is inconsistent with their primary motivation of making money."

Sure, as long as you "trust" corporations to follow the money, which they typically do, then your "trust" in them is probably well founded. But isn't this the point Dr-ROX was getting at despite the new context of "trust"? We could add your qualifier to his statement to write: "you should never trust corporations to do something that is inconsistent with their primary motivation of making money." And Bam! You and he are both right.

I think WereCatf made an excellent point as well. Within a privately owned & operated company, trust extends from the owners. If either the owner or the company were to break that trust, then that would reflect directly on the other. It'd be a large stretch to tie in the concept of trust into the stock market since the only thing that matters there is profits. Most people own shares of managed funds rather than individual stocks anyways, like 401k retirement contribution plans where employees pay into the funds chosen by the company's fund managers. The concept of right or wrong doesn't factor in, just profits.

"Someone may have an aversion to profit-centric organizations, but this is different from being untrustworthy."

It is what it is, and it's not always bad, but the issue for myself and others is the conflict of interest faced by profit driven corporations. Sometimes corporate profit comes at the expense of society at large. For example, vendor lock and products restricted by design. Products that last "forever" are good for consumers, but bad for profit; they'd go a long way in helping reduce pollution, waste. Offshored support centers are notorious for poor customer support, yet companies still opt for it fully knowing this to increase profits. Etc. These companies aim to not be so bad as to loose many customers, but just "good enough" to maintain them while maximizing profits.